IAMColumbia

Gaming Unequal

After reading 30+ pages in the book it shows how far we haven’t come when it comes to video games and interaction with them as far as gender goes. Many games over the past 4 decades have been modeled after and marketed to males, and their sense of adventure. Whereas females haven’t had that many games in that period of time although more women as main characters have appeared in male-oriented video games a few good examples of this would be The Metroid Series,

The Street Fighter Series, The Classic Ms. Pac-Man and Tomb Raider. And in those games they appeal to the males sense of adventure from books like Tom Sawyer, Huck Finn, The Blind Colt, Where the Wild things are, etc. and play in real environments. that span from his childhood, to his preteens to his adulthood and those themes are in every game. Mostly all of these games have shown a female in distress but never as the main character. The female games on the market are more reality and emotion based that sometimes deal with realistic fiction as it is a fictional character experiencing real-life events in a specific place or time. or the games that deal with females self-discovery or escapism from their problems. Those themes were from books written a long time ago in Little women, Jane Eyre, and many others that focused on emotion and character building, no fantasy themes but Alice in Wonderland, but still dealt with real-life issues. It is assumed that women will not enjoy male-based games

because of the violence in them, and unfamiliarity with the environments set before them because they never played outside by themselves or with other girls in sandboxes, playgrounds, or areas designated to be for boys and not for girls as girls play areas were limited to the front porch of their homes, a friends house, or their bedrooms.

And also the being taught that a women doesn’t engage in those types of games or environments because it’s not “Ladylike” and it’s childish so women are taught from a very early age to be instead of being given the freedom to enjoy all forms of play from childhood to now. The sad part is all play environments that are known for male and female are being eliminated from the “Outside” world in the form of trees,empty lots, parks, etc. and being confined to structured places and urban development such as nightclubs, their places of work, apartment complexes etc. So both male and female can’t identify with them because they never had the experience to engage in them. Again there needs to be balance and allowance for women to have games that can challenge their game skill as it does for men, and games that can be practical as well as the games currently out for young girls and women.

The only games that come close have been hand-held games in the 90’s gameboy, tiger, etc. and online games such as Farmville, Whoville, Mafia-Wars etc. that gender doesn’t matter and they are free to play the game without society constraints telling them how they can be or what they are supposed to play. It has been proven that young girls and women enjoy male-Oriented games or video games period, if given the chance to play them. All environments both reality and virtual need to be expanded to include male and female in equal gameplay it is possible it just needs to happen more than it already is.